New York City Subway
Shutterstock

A few days ago, Governor Kathy Hochul sent the state’s National Guard in to address subway crime. TTAG touched on one aspect of this flawed approach yesterday, but let’s take another angle on why this is plain wrong. So, first, here let’s take a quick look at mainstream media reporting on this, explore the truth of what they’re actually doing, and then I’ll explain why it’s never going to work.

Before explaining to us what they actually are doing, they talk about violent crime and then give the governor some airtime to scare us with the idea of being “slashed in the throat”. They then show the victim of that crime, talk about a conductor who got hit with a bottle, and other scary things.

You’d think that they’d send MPs, SFs, and the state cops they brought in to do proactive patrols, ride the trains, etc. But, you’d be wrong. What they don’t show us and only briefly explain is that they’re mostly doing bag searches. Here’s some citizen footage of the reality on the ground:

While many people are bamboozled by media reports, people who actually ride the subways weren’t as easy to fool. After getting a lot of citizen complains, media did eventually bring up the obvious civil rights violation this bag search presents. But, the governor wasn’t willing to acknowledge that people don’t want their rights being violated.

When asked what happens if people refuse a search, she said, “You can go home. We’re not going to search you. You can say ‘No.’, but you’re not taking the subway.”

That might fly at, say, Disneyland, where it’s private property and your livelihood doesn’t depend on getting past the gate. But, in a place like New York, where they’re actively discouraging driving with punitive congestion fees and refused to even let people ride electric bikes for years, you’re basically forced to use transit. While that may make sense from an urbanist perspective, the essential nature of public transit means that the Fourth Amendment is being violated, regardless of what she says.

In other words, if you don’t like it, it’s the old “let them eat cake” we’ve come to expect from elitists like Hochul.

Constitutional rights aside, it should also be clear that searching random bags isn’t going to work in the long run. There’s no way for New York to keep this up, both due to resources and due to the fact that this will eventually end up in court. Eventually, the Guard will have to go home, and the city will be right back where it was before. And, attacks with things like bottles and knives aren’t going to stop when there’s a random bag check that you can refuse and then walk to another station hoping for better odds.

Instead of trying to trade the Fourth Amendment in for security, Hochul should instead recognize the right to self defense. Like him or not, Bernhard Goetz knew what to do when somebody threatens you on the subway. Most of the rest of the country has learned to respect the right to keep and bear arms since that incident, while places like New York have doubled down on failed public policy in the decades since.

While mainstream media and sheepish, effete New Yorkers might put up with this nonsense, we need to treat random bag searches on public property like the cancer that it is and prevent it from spreading to other states.

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52 COMMENTS

  2. The states response only benefits the state not the potential victims.
    This is how the state rolls.

    The states response to everything is to enrich the state and stomp the people. Unfortunately too many people love to be stomped and for whatever reason equate state sponsored extortion with helping themselves live better lives.

    • “…refused to even let people ride electric bikes…”

      NYC doesn’t permit E-bikes? They’re everywhere here in CA. One of the actually logical uses of battery-centric modes of transportation. There are inherent problems with EV cars and the push for them at a macro level, but bicycles? It’s a great utility.

      But then, it appears that Newsom and Hochul are going hand-up-the-bat in their efforts to be known as Tyrant Governor Supreme.

    • Man, these are the same people that railed against “stop and frisk” searches. Also a violation of the 4rth but biased towards searching sketchy poor’s. Since they lost Bruen, I wonder what demographic is targeted in this round, maybe people that might fit the carry card crowd… Older, well off looking folks, not necessarily white or black, but, something like old guys wearing that beloved vest 😉

  3. “Then go home. We’re not going to search you, you can say no, but you’re not taking the subway.”

    So let me get this straight… the governor sends the national guard, a military force, into a law enforcement mission to violate fourth amendment rights and if someone says no to an unconstitutional search they are denied access to what is in reality the ‘publics property’ (the subway system) that is in reality their property (‘the peoples property’) because they pay for it with their tax dollars and not the ‘governments’ property – and the governor says this?

    I guess next the governor will want to quarter those troops in peoples homes, ya know, ’cause security’.

    One of the greatest lies a government ever told the people was “Just let us do this, its to make you safe.” – no one is safe if a government can choose at any time to violate the constitutional rights of the people. I can’t remember right now which of the country’s founders said it or the exact words they used – but the point of it was that a government that can simply violate the rights of the people when ever they want, especially by a show of force, is just one trigger pull away from using its military to line up innocent citizens against a wall and shoot them as an example to enforce the governments will upon the people.

    Its one of the reasons why we are not a democracy, but rather a constitutional republic – that the people have freedom from this type of tyranny. Yet here is this governor intentionally imposing her Marxist Socialist tyrant will upon the public by use of military force.

    • And who gets “targeted” for the searches?

      Mostly white people to avoid stigmatizing certain demographics?

      Back in the mid-2010s downunder a government agency known as “Border Force” (and frequently nicknamed “Border Farce”) announced their brilliant idea of random visa and citizenship checks. Their method was to grab random people in Martin Place (a large pedestrian mall in Sydney) and cuff them to a cable strung between some vehicles. They openly admitted to avoiding racial profiling by targeting white people. Their plan was to seize people and demand either citizenship papers or passports to see visas. If you couldn’t immediately present either, you were to be detained for further evaluation.

      Considering no citizen has specific “citizenship papers” beyond standard identification such as a driver’s license, this proposal got shot down very quickly at both state and federal levels. Of course the media and civil liberties groups had a field day too.

  4. sheepish, effete New Yorkers

    Remember when the NY caricature was the tough guy?
    All that’s left of that persona is make-believe coddled clowns like Rappport and Deutsch.
    Everybody there now is some whiny limp-wristed wannabe artist claiming to live in Brooklyn.

    • Bags are clear, now you’re safe to go sucker punch and kick victims in the head, grab their belongings and run…nyc you voted for it so live with it dumbfuk democRats.

      TRUMP 2024.

  5. The subway is exactly the place you want to carry. Chicago seems to be the same way with mobs of roaming muggers on the trains and people who push other people on to the platform because they are sociopaths.

    • “The subway is exactly the place you want to carry.”

      Preach it, brother!

      Subway crime will drop 95 percent when the working stiffs that ride the subway in NYC start getting their concealed-carry permits en-mass…

    • Gee I got attacked on a Chiraq subway some 38 years ago. Going downstairs homie grabbed me from behind. Big mistake as I slammed him into a wall. He had 4 younger punks waiting & I yelled to the ticket taker “call the police”! They did nothing. I was unarmed(but quite strong then). They ran off. NOW I’d get shot. Now I’d have at least a knife & a pepper gel thing & likely a gat. Of course now I wouldn’t dream of using the EL🙄Maybe Lee Zeldin will get elected in NY next time…

  6. Bag searches. What a joke!
    Always make the law abiding the victim.
    Keep them afraid and unable to protect themselves.

    • Security Theater. Look at who will get searched. To avoid racial profiling mostly white people will be searched.

  9. everything was manufactured here. there were thousands of neighborhood taverns before before maggie daley’s p u r g e.

    • stop and frisk is effective, broken windows policy is effective. leos know who the usual suspects are.

    • no need to search ’em all. profile swarthy males. checking bags? as long as you can opt out.

    • i tried when sargent whiteshirt wanted to go through the diaper bag in our stroller. despite my objections he ordered his lackey to rummage away.

    • they found the desitin alright. going hot got me a splitlip billyclub and a night in chinatown. bologna and mustard on white bread ain’t bad.

    • jus’ sos all y’all know, the above was posted as one post. nothing showed, no moderation, zip. i tested on the next article and this one (phooey), no prob, so it wasn’t like the ddos ten years ago, that got some banned until the big reset.
      so i tried just 1st paragraph, nope. sentence by sentence was hit or miss. you can see where i had to space out words so they would appear, looks like censorship to me. as i said, this was not “held in moderation,” just straight ghost ether zombie. the subgenius will always prevail over the pinks though.

      • YouTube has less censorship than TTAG.

        Or TTAG needs to learn how to edit the list of “moderation” words.

  11. Your rights are exactly what the tyrants say, right up until they say otherwise. That is the official line of the Democrat Party, though they use deny it and use fancy language to try to hide the truth.

    I just hope we can recover our God given rights using the first three boxes without having to resort to the horrors the fourth box will require.

  12. The first time I went to NYC I had already decided I was going to stay on top of the dirt. I felt vindicated when I saw a news story where a commuter was attacked by a homeless man using a sawsall that was left unattended. The bag searches are eye wash. The very last time I took my kids to the Land of the Big Mouse they had started bag searches. I ducked into a restroom and transferred my P-7 and reload from butt pack to waistband. Once inside I found another restroom and reversed the process.

    • Yep, I have carried in Mouseland prior to bag searches, but haven’t gone back since our daughter went off to college a dozen years ago. I will admit that I carried an old 9mm that I was willing write off in the rather unlikely event they caught me with it. I do find it gratifying that DeSantis ripped away their ability to have their own privately owned police force.

    • Nicely played !

      I may or may not have recently been to NJ with a Ruger LCP that I was willing to strip and discard. (With FMJ ’cause Has are a felony.)

  14. Somebody take a walk around Times Square and ask random people to explain the 4th. Crickets.

  16. Just another democratic shithole! The next Detroit! Chicago is already fallen! Dems have ruined every city and state they control, which leads to more government bailouts and control and loss of your rights and privacy!

  18. Maybe JB can do this in Illanoy. a check before a ride on the El maybe a check before you can Dan Ryan or I 57. Of course any bus.
    JUST SAYING!

  19. Why do you think think is not about public safety?
    The Constitution, through the Fourth Amendment, protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. The Fourth Amendment, however, is not a guarantee against all searches and seizures, but only those that are deemed unreasonable under the law.

    Whether a particular type of search is considered reasonable in the eyes of the law, is determined by balancing two important interests. On one side of the scale is the intrusion on an individual’s Fourth Amendment rights. On the other side of the scale are legitimate government interests, such as public safety.

    • So the government can suspend your rights any time they become inconvenient? Sorry, but no, that’s not how it’s supposed to work. The solution here is to allow people to protect themselves. That not only resolves the issue on a more permanent basis but in doing so, would also restore and enforce another inalienable right. Further, it is the least restrictive method to end the public safety issue. Bottom line, the search is unnecessary, ineffective over the long term, and unconstitutional.

  20. Well how about that. The PrwrsThat Be can call the NG to check subway bags but can’t call in the NG to check bags crossing the Texas boarder.
    I’m senile, demented, and old and don’t know what I’m doing so I can keep classified material and its okay. I’m still good to go on being a President though.
    Down With Trump
    theBiden in 2024,2028,2032 . It’s a four term presidency.

    • “theBiden in 2024,2028,2032 . It’s a four term presidency.”

      Don’t write stuff like that, my gut did a flip when I read it. Thought I was gonna have a stroke, heart attack, and vomit all at once!

  21. “Instead of trying to trade the Fourth Amendment in for security, Hochul should instead recognize the right to self defense.”

    😆😆😆

    Hochul won’t be giving up her protection detail. What does she care?

  22. My oldest brother was a transit cop, starting in 2023. Back then, they rode the trains. These token toy soldiers searching women’s bags in Grand Central have no effect on crime

  23. Right put the National Guard to do what all those police officers should be doing …. but you cut the funding of the NYPD.

  24. I can see a nice far law suit coming from this. Second, while I have no need or desire to visit NYC it would be a simple thing to slip a weapon into a waist band or pocket. So search the bag. Try a pat down/frisk and you might find your testicles laying between your boots. A nice sharp dagger can do a lot of damage from up close.

  25. What did you think was gonna happen when you supported defunding the police???
    There will always be law enforcement in the United States. The only question is, what form will that law enforcement take???

  26. Libertarians liberals and the left are amazingly stupid people.
    They live in a fantasy world of the mind. It is devoid of reality. It is devoid of the reality of the human experience. An experience of violence cheating and dishonesty.

    And that is why we have laws and law enforcement.
    Because there is a certain sub population among human beings. That is criminal and has no self-control.

    We fought a revolutionary war because the british government wanted to control america from england, over three thousand miles away.

    And this is the same mentality that’s going on right now. Instead of having local law enforcement. Now you have law enforcement from outside the community. Coming in and telling you what you can and can’t do.

  27. I really don’t feel sorry for what’s happening in New York State. It’s about time the voters in all 50 states are held accountable

    Just like everyone wants to hold the voters accountable in Chicago. Or Philadelphia. Or Detroit. Or Portland Oregon.

    Far too many people, libertarians liberals on the left, really don’t believe in liberty. They just don’t. Because they refuse to accept the responsibility and accountability, and the consequences that go with it.

    It really seems the only way to get people to understand this. Is for the world around them to really go to crap. Until it affects them personally.

    The three L’s fully supported and open border’s policy. That is until republicans in the Southern states. Started shipping thousands upon thousands of illegal aliens. To the sanctuary cities where they live. Now all of a sudden they don’t like it.

  29. So it seems there are a lot of people who really do believe in a magical talisman.

    And when you wear this magical talisman. A government uniform well fitted. It will magically stop bullets and prevent you from being attacked by criminals.

    Because you don’t need to carry a gun as a soldier or police officer. Because your magical government uniform will frighten away criminals.

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